No Place Like Home

Gutterson said that Green Valley is like a verb and a noun because all the things one has to do to be accustomed to the rules of the community. The community has a sense of strong rules and securities. "Warning, Neighborhood watch program in force. We immediately report any suspicious persons and activities to the police department."(183) These signs evident everywhere creates the aspect and feeling that the community watches you like it does it its self. The community has a set standard of living and activities already put and planned. Also the growth of the community with houses going up has to do with the verb. "Everywhere on the fringes of its 8,400 acres one finds homes going up". (183)

This piece reminds me of the "Homeplace" piece in the sense of the ways he tries to prove his point. He talks to the mayor, gaining credibility from authority. He also did his research with the statistics and facts about the growth. The reader can feel that he knows what he is talking about by backing up his information with interviews, observations, stats, and stories. With this he uses all aspects of rhetorical analysis rhetorically analyzing the community of Green Valley.

I agree with Gutterson on the aspect that suburbs are not as safe as they seem to be. My neighborhood is classified as a suburb but on many occasions I hear and witness gun shooting, robberies, and more illegal activities that one would not hope to find in a suburb. It is not the environment but the people in the environment that make it dangerous.

my hood

Growing up I always wanted to be like the guy next door. He had the coolest cars. So many cars , he had to park one in front of our house just for space. That one was my favorite. It was the "skittles" car. 26 inch rims with skittles painted on the inside of the rims. Skittles were painted randomly on the light blue candy paint. I loved that car. I always wondered why he had such a nice car and lived in our neighborhood. I found out one day. It was four in the morning when i was 10, and I heard the police yelling and gun shots firing. They had said he had been selling drugs out of that house for over 10 years. I been in that house many times even though my mama told me not to. And every day after that, one by one those cars left. It felt like my dreams were stolen away from me. When they took the skittles car I cried a little as the tow truck pulled it away. My dream of being my narcotic neighbor followed the tow truck and never returned.